


We Can Ride On A Star

by bastiankurts (orphan_account)



Category: Glee
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-05
Updated: 2013-04-05
Packaged: 2017-12-07 14:18:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,028
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/749469
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/bastiankurts
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>(Star Trek! AU)</i> Kurt Hummel and Sebastian Smythe had always been rivals, ever since the moment that they first noticed each other in a lecture hall during their first year at Starfleet Academy. But when Sebastian lands himself in trouble over an Academy program, is Kurt annoyed or slightly impressed by the others skills?</p>
            </blockquote>





	We Can Ride On A Star

**Author's Note:**

> This idea's been lurking at the back of my mind for some time now, and after a troublesome time trying to get something written for it, I finally have the fruit of my efforts to upload and share. 
> 
> Set in an alternative Star Trek universe where Kurt and Sebastian are both cadets at Starfleet Academy. Some aspects of this are obviously adapted from the movie and television show. Other expects are fabricated in order to fit with this story. I've tried to keep it somewhat relatable however, so hopefully, this isn't too much a huge failure or a disservice to anything! This is purely meant for enjoyment.
> 
> If more inspiration comes to mind for it, I may write more to this universe. For now, we'll see how things go with the writing muse.

Kurt was livid. Absolutely _livid._

When he had originally decided to assist in taking part in the Kobayashi Maru training exercise, it wasn’t out of wanting to be a good student who could spare the time to do so. No, it was purely out of his own interest on whom it was that was being tested. Had it of been any other person, Kurt would have decided to do what it was that he usually did in such circumstances; and that was to leave things well alone in favour of focusing on his own work that he had to do. However, with the rumours telling him that it was Sebastian Smythe who was being put to the test, well it was simply an opportunity that Kurt had to be present for himself.

Ever since their first year of starting out at Starfleet Academy and when they had met that fateful day during their first lecture hall together, Kurt and Sebastian had become somewhat rivals. Kurt had always found Sebastian to be complacent, that he chose not to pay attention most of the time, and more often than not could be found with a look of complete and utter boredom upon his face in classes. Yet he could not deny that Sebastian was, indeed, smart. Smarter than most of the others that were in their classes at, least. It was just that smug smirk he seemed to constantly wear, and how Sebastian acted like others around him were below him more than a large percentage of the time that bothered Kurt, that made him dislike him and feel so competitive against him.

Sebastian’s cleverness made it clear to Kurt that he was more than aware that the Kobayashi Maru had never, in the entire history of Starfleet, been beaten by a student before. It was designed not to be beaten; designed to test and make those taking it think in a creative and innovative manner. Yet even with that in mind Sebastian’s overconfidence was winning out once again, and word had quickly spread around that he was convinced that on his third attempt at taking the test, he would be the first student to beat it. To win.

In a way Kurt found it almost laughable, and at one point he had actually approached Sebastian himself about it, asking him how he planned to beat the unbeatable system. Yet all he received in reply was that of Sebastian’s usual signature smirk and a wink, leaving the rest of the topic to remain very much a mystery. Although others that had been caught and wrapped around Sebastian’s finger fell for the trick, almost to the point of trying to think of what it could be that he had planned, Kurt had very different opinions on Sebastian’s reluctance to share. He expected that Sebastian had no real plan at all, and that all he was trying to do was talk himself up, boost his already large ego even more than it needed to be. It was the air of confidence that Sebastian carried that intrigued Kurt, not because he wanted to see how Sebastian would pull his master plan off, but merely because Kurt wanted to see Sebastian’s face when he, inevitably, failed.

But oh, how very wrong Kurt ended up being.

With no explanation attached at the time, Sebastian had somehow, someway, managed to do as he had said he would. None of the people who witnessed or who helped in the training exercise could understand how the system had been beaten, and most of the people that were involved were more or less speechless at what it was they had seen. Kurt included. The mission simulator had been a success, and yet Sebastian had barely done anything.

Deep down Kurt knew that there was no feasible way that the program could have been beaten that easily -- having taken the exercise himself once in the past and experiencing the difficulty level that was attached to it, and logically even Sebastian wasn’t that advanced to have cracked it almost effortless -- yet what had unravelled in front of Kurt’s very eyes spoke differently. Shocked Kurt’s attention whilst in the training room had briefly glanced over to where Sebastian was seated for a moment, and he could see from where he stood that the familiar, smug grin was found on the others face, accompanied by a look that could only be described as a mixture of both proud and bored. Kurt wanted to wipe it all off of the other cadets face as annoyance began to bubble up deep inside of him.

No one could believe it, but Sebastian had done what it was that he intended. And he was the talk of them all.

* * *

 

Which led to where Kurt found himself later that evening. Having the time to think to himself over what it was that had happened, Kurt had only grown more and more frustrated, which in the end made him feel a little bit furious. He eventually had grown tired of sitting in his quarters and attempting to guess how Sebastian had managed to show more or less everyone up, and so had decided to march himself down to Sebastian’s and force the answer from him. He knew that Sebastian had to have returned by that point, having been taken away by a group of commanding officers soon after the events of the training exercise for what Kurt could only expect was their own desire of trying to work out what it was that had happened, and Kurt really wanted to know what the trick was that Sebastian had pulled on them all.

In almost no time at all Kurt found himself stopping outside the door to the others quarters, almost burning a glare into it for a moment as he composed himself and thought of how he was going to approach things, before finally just giving in and pressing the small button beside the doors forcefully, signaling his arrival. Kurt continued to keep his finger pressed hard on the button, waiting for the other cadet to just open the door for him already. Eventually it did, and the door slid open to reveal the sight of Sebastian. He wore a tired and annoyed look upon his face, and kurt noticed the way that he ran a hand through what was the mess of hair on his head before letting out an irritated sigh.

“God’s sake, Kurt. What do you --”

“No,” Kurt interrupted, holding up a finger between the both of them and turning his sharp glare up to look at Sebastian directly. Sebastian’s words came to a halt almost instantly at Kurt’s tone of voice, and instead he rose an eyebrow at the attitude that he was faced with. Kurt on the otherhand didn’t falter, instead deciding to push past Sebastian and letting himself into the room silently. It wasn’t until he was standing in the center of the room and he heard the door slide shut behind them, knowing that Sebastian had followed him in that Kurt turned on his heels to face him again, aiming his glare at Sebastian’s confused expression once more.

“You don’t get to ask me _what I think I’m doing_.” He continued, knowing what  it was that Sebastian had been about to ask him and speaking as if he hadn’t just invited himself into the room so freely. “How did you do it?” Kurt asked, deciding to get straight to the point of the reason why he had arrived in the first place.

Having finally understood why he had been blessed with receiving such a visitor more or less on his doorstep Sebastian couldn’t help but let out a small breath of laughter, before crossing his arms across his chest as he rolled his eyes. “Really? _That’s_ what you came here to hassle me about today?”

“No one has beaten that test before,” Kurt answered, shaking his head slightly with the exasperation that he was feeling. “ _No one_. The point of the exercise is that there is supposed to be no way to beat it. And yet earlier today I had to sit through you defeating the purpose of it so effortlessly, and then acting as if it was _that_ simple to do so!”

“What’s wrong Kurt? Upset that you didn’t think of it first?” Sebastian asked, and Kurt noticed the way that that smirk that always seemed to accompany Sebastian’s features appeared on his face once again, his lips curling at the edges, albeit almost tiredly.  Kurt pushed away the curiosity he felt within himself at why Sebastian appeared so tired however with a shake of the head, focusing more on the reason why he was bothering with visiting the other in the first place.

“Do you even understand what the point of the Kobayashi Maru is, Sebastian? Do you?” He shot back, keeping his attention fixed firmly on Sebastian and not backing down. “It’s about how you would approach a no win scenario --”

“God, don’t you sound like that damn Vulcan with the excessively pointy ears. I only did what I wanted to do,” Sebastian cut in again, walking past Kurt as he decided to make his way to one of the chairs that sat to one side of his room. “ And if you really care to know, I don’t believe in no win scenarios.”

Kurt’s gaze continued to follow Sebastian, watched Sebastian as he flopped down into a chair, slouching as he reached for his datapad and scrolling through some of the unopened messages that he had sitting there. His own expression was shocked at what he heard and at Sebastian’s apparent nonchalance about what it was that they were discussing. A part of him couldn’t believe what he’d just heard, and yet somehow the other somehow could believe that Sebastian would think such things. Given such arrogance as what Kurt had witnessed from Sebastian over the years, Kurt had learnt to assume that Sebastian was just simply one of those types of people who believed that they could come out of every situation trumping the opposition. That they were always right and there was no alternative, no room for failure. That failure wasn’t even an option in Sebastian’s world. He could sense it in nearly every argument or disagreement that they had with one another, the tension tangible between them, but Kurt didn’t expect that such arrogance wouldn’t have stemmed itself so deep into Sebastian’s consciousness that it would narrow his views as much as it had.

Eventually, Kurt came out of his shock, shaking his head again before returning his attention back on Sebastian and giving him a somewhat odd look.

“I’m sorry, but I don’t think I heard you correctly. What I _think_ I just heard you say however, was that you _don’t_ believe in no win scenarios.”

“That’s exactly what I said,” Sebastian replied, his attention focused on the datapad in his hand still, not even bothering for a second to move or look in Kurt’s general direction. “It’s not exactly difficult to process those words. Well, maybe for _you_ it is.”

“How can you not believe in no win scenarios?” Kurt asked, ignoring the obvious attempted at an insult that had been aimed at him. “There’s so much history pointing to the very fact that they exist.”

“No there isn’t.”

“Erm, yes. There is.” Kurt replied.

“Erm, _no_. There really isn’t.”

There was a silence between the two of them, and Kurt could only raise an eyebrow at Sebastian’s ease to dismiss what they had both been taught. Sebastian could feel Kurt’s gaze on him, and after a while it began to bother him, causing him to turn back to the face the slightly older cadet and look at the astonished expression that was present upon his face.

“Look, no scenario is no win, it’s just how it’s perceived to be that makes it so. History may make it seem like there was no other rational decision to be made with the situation that was presented at that point in time, but if you actually bother to think about it, there is always an option in front of you. You just have to be smart enough to look for it.”

“And I suppose that _you_ are smart enough to look for it?” Came Kurt’s response. Sebastian on the otherhand merely shrugged, turning his attention back to the datapad once more.

“You saw what happened in the training exercise this afternoon.”

“Which brings me back to my original question,” Kurt said, crossing his arms across his chest before continuing. “How did you beat that system?”

There was another small moment of silence between the two of them, and Kurt thought that Sebastian wasn’t going to reply -- that he wasn’t even listening anymore. Yet as he was just about to let out a sigh of his own, Kurt heard Sebastian speak once more.

“I reprogrammed it.”

At Sebastian’s confession, Kurt stared at him. It was unheard of -- a cadet thinking of reprogramming any of the training programs to make them bend to their ideals or wishes -- and Kurt wasn’t sure that if he was hearing the truth from Sebastians words, whether or not he was impressed that he had thought to take such a step in which to assure his own success if the words were true, or if he strongly disagreed with Sebastian’s methods based on the grounds that he had tampered so foolishly with Starfleet programming.

“You reprogrammed the Kobayashi Maru?” Kurt asked, as if searching for some sign or clearer clarification of what it was that Sebastian’s words actually meant.

“It wasn’t that difficult. Not if you’re good at reprogramming things,” Sebastian answered, not bothering to look at Kurt as he did. It wasn’t unknown to others that Sebastian was good at programming files and data -- it was actually one of his many vast skills -- but Kurt didn’t exactly expect that he would be able to use those very skills to reprogram something that was considered such an important test and lesson to the Academy. Surely those sorts of things are a little bit more tricky to access than another cadets files or user details.

“Sebastian, you don’t just -- reprogram things because they don’t provide the result you want first --”

“What, you think I reprogrammed it just to prove that I could win?” Sebastian asked, finally turning to face Kurt again. He didn’t wait for Kurt to respond, yet for a flash of a second Kurt swore he saw something that resembled hurt in the others expression. “The test itself is a cheat, Kurt. What is the point in a program that provides you with no possible means of winning it? To cheat it by cheating and reprogramming was me sending a message of that very fact.”

“The test is designed not to cheat but to _teach,”_ Kurt cut in. “It’s designed to show you --”

“What to do when you can’t win in battle and are facing certain death. Yes, I _know_ Kurt. Again, both you and the pointy eared Vulcan share the quality where you both have made it your priority to keep attempting to drill that little fact into my mind. It doesn’t mean that I have to believe it’s the case however.”

Sebastian threw the datapad back onto the table then, before stretching his arms and letting out another tired sigh of his own.

“What’s the point in being a good commander if all you see is the threat of death in any given situation? Anyone that’s been left in charge of other peoples lives should prioritize giving hope to those that follow you. At the end of the day, if you do face a scenario that seems like it’s at a dead end, you forget the prime objective and you instead act to get as many people out of there as possible. Does that sound like a no win scenario to you?”

Kurt opened his mouth to reply, but then froze before he could say anything, thinking about what it was that Sebastian had just said. As the words sunk in, Kurt realised that he hadn’t expected Sebastian to respond with something that was so ... logical, in a way. It shook him slightly, seeing Sebastian’s point of view on things, and knowing that he believed so strongly on what a commanding captain should do if a situation like the Kobayashi shows ever happened in reality...

It wasn’t just that though. Sebastian’s view made sense, in an odd sort of way. It was like the old earth believe; where a ship would sink it’s captain goes down with it, yet the crew acts to get as many civilians into lifeboats and out of harms way as possible. Kurt hadn’t thought of facing things in that way. When he had taken the test, he had used his initiative to take down the enemy, thinking that in such a scenario taking the opposition down with you was a sure way of winning. He hadn’t considered the casualties.

“You get it, don’t you?” Sebastian said, interrupting Kurt from his train of thought. Kurt looked up at him, staring back at Sebastian silently as the other continued. “A no win scenario dictates that there be no survivors. Yet if you get even half of your crew to safety -- then you have the upperhand still. It’s like that old saying; you live one day to fight another.”

Kurt continued to watch Sebastian, not really knowing how to respond to his words. It was the first time that he had seen such a side to him, seen the cleverness that he had so often heard about but also was so quick to push aside. With no one around him to really attempt to try and impress, Sebastian’s overconfidence wasn’t apparent, and all Kurt could really see was someone who had a general belief in how things should be handled. How he would handle them given the position.

“Not that it matters, however,” Sebastian spoke again, his voice quieter than before. He leant back in his chair, bringing his arms to rest behind his head. “I’m on probation until further notice.”

“On _probation_?” Kurt asked, somewhat surprised. He noticed Sebastian give a small sneer as he glanced at him out of the corner of his eye, before his attention went back to where he had previously left the datapad laying upon the table.

“Yeah. Apparently, Starfleet don’t take too kindly to their cadets hacking into and reprogramming their systems. Personally, I think they don’t like that I showed them up, but ...” Sebastian’s words drifted off, before he gave a small little shrug as if the entire thing didn’t really bother him. For some reason however, Kurt sensed that it did bother him; a lot more than he was letting on.

“Well, they did write the program in for a reason, of course they’re not going to be happy that you changed it all,” Kurt replied, although his own words were a little softer than they had been before. His annoyance and aggravation had fallen slightly, and although he still didn’t agree with Sebastian’s methods -- and really, when did he ever agree with anything Sebastian did? As smart as he could be he made some really stupid decisions -- he could understand that Sebastian was using the opportunity he had to show his own initiative. As much as Kurt grudgingly didn’t want to admit it to himself that was usually the sort of thing that would get a person recognized, one way or another.

“And just when arguing with you was getting to be so entertaining,” Sebastian replied, seemingly choosing to ignore Kurt’s input. “Now I’m going to be watched whenever I do any other training exercises, how much does that suck? Not to mention the disciplinary hearing that I’m sure I’ll be put under.”

“That would be entertaining for me to watch you squirm,” Kurt answered, grinning when Sebastian turned to give him a wide eyed look.

“I don’t _squirm_ ,” He said, narrowing his eyes ever so slightly before turning his attention to look away from Kurt. “Although I really don’t want to be put under that much scrutiny. And god, I bet the Vulcan will be there too, didn’t he write the damn program?”

“You _did_ pay attention in a lecture. I am impressed.”

“Shut up,” Sebastian groaned, before letting out a small little breath of laughter. He turned to look up at where Kurt was still standing, a contemplative look upon his face for a moment that made Kurt want to tear his own attention from the other away, instead looking down at his feet and shuffling them slightly.

“Thanks, by the way.” Sebastian said suddenly, causing Kurt to look back up. He saw the way that Sebastian frowned slightly, as if just as confused as to why he was thanking him as Kurt currently was. “For ... helping? I guess? Although I know your intentions weren’t to actually help with the exercise, and you only did it to see what would happen.”

“No I --”

“Don’t finish that sentence Kurt,” Sebastian cut in. “I know. We’ve always been rivals. I guarantee I would have done the same if it was you taking the damn thing too. Especially if you were the one that said you knew a way to beat it.” He grinned then, giving Kurt a look. “Sure you’re not jealous I thought of it before you?”

“Oh, I’m perfectly sure,” Kurt answered, grinning himself. “After all, if anything interesting happens in the next few weeks, I’ll possibly be allowed to go with some of the other cadets, and you’ll still be sitting here, on your probation.”

Kurt turned on his heel then, heading for the door he had entered from earlier and hearing Sebastian mumble something to himself in response to what it was Kurt had just said from behind him. A small grin appeared on his face that he knew Sebastian couldn’t see, one that Kurt was sure was simply due to the fact that he had, in his own usual way when it came to their bickering and rivalry between one another, managed to rain on Sebastian’s parade, and dismissing any of the thoughts that may have suggested that the grin be for other reasons relating to the other cadet. Yet even as he pressed the button next to the side of the door that would allow him to leave Kurt hesitated for a second, turning his head to look at Sebastian once more, noticing the way that he ran a hand through his hair again as he slouched back in his seat, the expression on his face mirroring that of a sulking child for a second.

“Rub it in, Princess. But I still doubt that you’ll be assigned to any of the big named starships anytime soon,” He replied, turning to look at Kurt towards the end of his words and giving him a small grin in reply. The grin made it clear however that Sebastian, unlike how he would usually when talking to Kurt, was not aiming to be insulting towards him. Instead it was almost as if he was _joking_ with him, as if in that moment he held no malice for the person that had stormed his way into his quarters so freely and instantly started demanding questions.

The thought made Kurt feel somewhat uncomfortable, and so he schooled his expression back to the usual neutral expression he wore whilst he was working, standing up a little straighter as he tried to push away the cloud of questions that were swimming around in his mind.

“We’ll see, won’t we?” He simply replied, before turning to leave the room and Sebastian to his own devices.

What he didn’t notice as he left however was the way that Sebastian watched him walk away, nor did he notice the faint sign of the others cadets grin remaining upon his face for a few moments longer, before finally turning his attention back to reaching for the datapad he had thrown to one side earlier, reading the mail that was still shown on the screen.


End file.
